Mike's Minute: Time is up on excuses for thuggery downtown

Although Auckland gets the headlines, it is not alone when it comes to the destruction and degrading of downtown areas.

The bus facility in Dunedin has been dealing with a death, but as my daughter who lives there told me, it's been a mess for years and you avoid it.

Quick question: what's the point of a public transport facility if it is famously bad, so you don’t get near it?

Mike's Minute: Yet more questions about solving crime

It’s a sad, old business when part of your market update is the cost of the violent crime you are having to deal with.

Michael Hill this week talked of the sort of things businesses talk of; the downturn, the mood, the spend and the consumer. All of it's bad right now for obvious reasons.

What is interesting is they said of the various countries they operate in that New Zealand is the worst in terms of sentiment.

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Should we expect all this violence to be the new normal?

We have a young producer working on this show called Jack, who’s recently moved over from London.

He asked us today why we're all so worked up about this one shooting on Ponsonby Road - and why if you open any of the local newspapers' websites today, it’s right there at the top of the front page.

Lushington D. Brady: Swift ‘Justice’ for a Select Few

If You Want the Cops to Bother, You’ll Need a Rainbow

It’s amazing what miracles can be achieved by the New Zealand public service when the occasion calls.

Non-urgent referrals for mental health assessments in New Zealand were waiting an average of 26 days just for their first face-to-face appointment (which is not an actual assessment: as one psychologist put it, it’s the difference between placing your order at McDonalds and actually getting your meal). For some, the wait time can be as long as 526 days.

JC: We Do Not Feel Safer

I don’t care how many times the upstart Police Minister from Hutt South tells me I should feel safer: the fact is I don’t and very likely the majority of the country doesn’t either. The little woman can bleat on all she likes about her extra 1800 police, but from the daily level of violent crime reported, it appears some of her comments are nothing more than misinformation. This government can protest all it likes but the ‘soft on crime’ tag is very apt.

KSK: On Being Shot in the Head

Nothing to see here: just another isolated incident

Opening the online news sites each morning is a routine reveal of yet another crime: another murder, another gun-related incident, another case of domestic violence, another ram raid, another ‘youth’ crime, another case of child abuse, of gang warfare, etc. As it was this week when two people were hospitalised: victims of gunshot wounds in the CBD in Auckland at 11.30pm last Thursday.

Mike Hosking: Do Labour expect us to believe them on crime?

I have found one of the Prime Minister's real skills - announcing bollocks with a straight face.

How is it humanly possible to stand there in front of the nation's media and tell us that when it comes to crime, when it comes to ram raids, we have had a gutsful.

Have we Chris?

When did you work that out, you insightful genius, you?

Kevin: But Where Is the Punishment?

Police Minister Ginny Andersen is back to gaslighting us again.

Kerre Woodham: Finally, someone from the Government is telling the truth

It's an election year, so of course the law and order drum is being beaten.

It's beaten every time there's an election, with one side saying the other isn't doing a good job - but it's not just because it's an election.

The law and order drum is being beaten because innocent New Zealanders are being beaten in their homes and their places of work, in the street.

Tim Dower: Until we see a real response, this Government will be seen as soft on crime

A detailed bit of work in the Herald today about a critical election issue, that being crime, law and order if you prefer, or the lack of it right now.

Among other things, the work has found the number of people charged and convicted actually fell faster under the last National Government, than the current Labour Government.

I think the idea there is to put a question mark into the air over which party, if it's either of them, is soft on crime.